How does your garden grow?

Greetings from Ten Gables Cottage,

It is a lovely day here is South Florida, but oh! we need rain! I hear it is raining on the coast, so hopefully it will move this way later today. I took a little walk around the garden and here is what is growing.

Margaret has planted a lovely window box and I don't know the name of the flowers. I will have to ask her later---they are so pretty and sunny.

The crape myrtle is starting to bloom. When in bloom, crape myrtle is so lovely, but other times of the year, this deciduous tree is just not attractive at all. Often, I think I will just get rid of the brown stemmy looking thing and then , just in time, it blooms showy panicles with such lovely color that I end up keeping it. In fact, there are several on the property and they do make nice specimen trees in Summer. For all practical purposes, it is summer now and Spring is over! We usually have 2 or 3 weeks of nice Spring weather, then it turns hot!

Margaret has planted this lovely flowering vine on her fence and I think it is called mandavilla , not too sure, but it is really pretty there.

The roses here are putting on a big show right now and will continue to do so all summer. Roses bloom all year in Florida.

Even Kitty admires them!

And now to the vegetables! My purple cabbage looks o.k, not great! It needs more water, I am sure and also I have noticed a few bites are being eaten on the outer leaves by something, maybe grasshoppers. I think I will mix up some flour and pepper and sprinkle around the plants. Will that work? I don't know....I just got it off the top of my head!

Here is a tomato plant inside it's little cage. I will use some twist ties to secure it as it gets bigger.
It is getting tomatoes on it and this one is called a Big Boy.

I have some green onions here and there (I don't plant in rows because my veggies are mixed in a flower garden). It is kind of cute to see veggies growing among herbs and flowers! Never one to follow normal ways of doing things, I try to get a creative, artistic look to my garden. Later I will show you a photo of the whole thing. At the moment, it needs a little tidying up.

Green peppers are doing well. I have a banana pepper plant and a red one, as well.

The Chives are growing so well and are yummy a number of ways. I love them chopped on baked potatoes with sour cream.














Rosemary! My favorite. I love it in soups, on roasted chicken, in almost anything!

And here is an update on the pineapple. It is growing well and in a couple of months, should be quite large. It will be ready to eat in July probably.

That is my garden today! I hope you enjoyed the little tour. Happy gardening to you! Egretta